Tuesday, October 13, 2009

My Favorite Genealogical Society for the COG

I belong to five genealogical societies, one Scottish Clan, and one Mayflower surname group. Years ago after a Hansen reunion, my sister and I decide we needed to know more on out family, and the community college was having a beginning genealogy class, so we signed up. The instructor suggested for us to join the local society, and societies where we were researching. The local society met the first Saturday of each month so we went to a meeting and joined Eastern Washington Genealogical Society in January of 1991. Soon after that I joined the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, The Great River Genealogical Society (Quincy, Illinois), and the Grundy County Genealogical Society (Trenton, Missouri). My mother and grandfather were born in Trenton, Missouri and my grandmother was born just north of Grundy county in Mercer county so I found a lot of family in that area. Before my grandfathers family moved to Missouri they lived in Ursa, Illinois a small town close to Quincy, Illinois, and I still have a brick wall there looking for the parents of Thomas Kelly. On my father's side his dad came from Denmark, but his mothers family came to New England in 1630 so that is why I belong to the NEHGS. I also belong to the Washington State Genealogical Society. So which is my favorite? Naturally the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, my local society. I have been a member there longer, and worked on more volunteer activities from indexing to fund raising. I have been a gene helper, and since 1998 have been doing the research for others for EWGS. Over the years research has really changed, at first I did a lot of census look ups, today nearly everyone has already found their ancestor in an online census somewhere. I also spent a lot of time researching at the courthouse, but today I seldom get a query for courthouse research, partly because a lot of the courthouse records are online also, but a lot of records are still in the courthouse. I am an assistant blogger on the EWGS Blog. EWGS also has a spring and fall seminar, monthly meetings with a short program and internet genealogy classes each month. So education is a very important part of EWGS, and the Bulletin the quarterly newsletter is always interesting enough to sit down and read it from cover to cover when the mailman delivers it.

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About Me

I am Charles Hansen and started genealogy in 1991 after a family reunion. Started online on Prodigy in 1991 and stayed until Prodigy folded. Today I am the researcher for Eastern Washington Genealogical Society
charles_hansen@prodigy.net